"Busy yourselves with the children," continues Luther, still addressing the magistrates; "for many parents are like ostriches; they are hardened towards their little ones, and, satisfied with having laid the egg, they care nothing for it afterwards. The prosperity of a city does not consist merely in heaping up great treasures, in building strong walls, in erecting splendid mansions, in possessing glittering arms. If madmen fall upon it, its ruin will only be the greater. The true wealth of a city, its safety, and its strength, is to have many learned, serious, worthy, well educated citizens. And whom must we blame, because there are so few at present, except you magistrates, who have allowed our youth to grow up like trees in a forest?" Luther particularly insisted on the necessity of studying literature and languages: "What use is there, it may be asked, in learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew? We can read the Bible very well in German. Without languages," replies he, "we could not have received the Gospel......Languages are the scabbard that contains the sword of the Spirit;[380] they are the casket that guards the jewels; they are the vessel that holds the wine; and, as the Gospel says, they are the baskets in which the loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude. If we neglect the languages, we shall not only eventually lose the Gospel, but be unable to speak or write in Latin or in German. No sooner did men cease to cultivate them than Christendom declined, even until it fell under the power of the pope. But now that languages are again honoured, they shed such light that all the world is astonished, and every one is forced to acknowledge that our Gospel is almost as pure as that of the apostles themselves. In former times the holy Fathers were frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of languages; and in our days there are some who, like the Waldenses, do not think the languages to be of any use; but although their doctrine be good, they have often erred in the real meaning of the sacred text; they are without arms against error, and I fear very much that their faith will not remain pure.[381] If the languages had not made me positive as to the meaning of the Word, I might have been a pious monk, and quietly preached the truth in the obscurity of a cloister; but I should have left the pope, the sophists, and their anti-christian empire still unshaken."[382] [380] Die Sprachen sind die Scheide, darinnen dies Messer des Geistes stecket. L. Opp. W. x. 535. [381] Es sey oder werde nicht lauter bleiben. L. Opp. W. x. 535. [382] Ich hätte wohl auch können fromm seyn und in der Stille recht predigen. Ibid. [Sidenote: LEARNING EXTENDED TO THE LAITY.]